WTF is “Joyful Pessimism” and Why Should You Care?

Joyful Pessimism: A Memoir of Sex, Mental Illness, and Philosophy is coming out in late 2023 from El León Literary Arts. I’m pre-releasing it here as a serialized book. Subscribe to this substack to get each chapter as fast as I can write them.

The memoir has plenty of real-life sex and philosophical pessimism in it, but I’ve decided to spice it up with even more sex and philosophical pessimism—which hasn’t even occurred yet—via a dystopian erotic novella. The novella is entitled Ishtar’s Angel, and takes place in 2033 after an economic collapse due to AI takeover. It is presented as a “memoir” by one Daemon Derriere.

The chapters of this book alternate between my memoir (true) and the novella narrated by Daemon (hopefully never true), and are clearly labeled.

The interweaving narratives deal with topics including: the AI jobpocalypse, BDSM, psychedelics, witch worship, bipolar, anti-porn feminism vs. sex work decriminalization, ancient and future temple prostitution, goddess worship, philosophical pessimism, antinatalism, biomisia, assisted suicide, economic collapse, bitcoin, the breakdown of the nation-state and the rise of neo-feudalism: and how to survive it all with gallows humor.

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• New chapters as soon as I write them

• Access to all past chapters in the archive

• My audiobook narrations of the chapters as I create them

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